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REGENERATION OF THE CANNING TOWN AND ROYAL DOCKS AREA (CITY EAST) THROUGH AN INTEGRATED LAND USE AND TRANSPORT

PLANNING APPROACH

Neil Georgeson Transport for London

1. CONTEXT The Mayor’s London Plan and Economic Development Strategy seek to accommodate London’s growth within its current boundaries in a sustainable manner, without encroaching on the Green Belt or other open spaces.

The London Plan identifies the need to shift the centre of gravity in London’s development eastwards. The rationale for this is twofold: east London has not benefited from significant development in the recent past, and also it has large areas of under-used land and resources capable of more efficient use – particularly in the Thames Gateway corridor, which has been identified by central Government as the largest development area in Britain. It is for this reason that east London is identified as the priority area for development, regeneration and infrastructure improvement.

This eastwards policy thrust builds on developments that have already taken place over the past twenty years. It seeks to build on significant new emerging drivers in the western end of the Thames Gateway, including the expansion of the Canary Wharf and proposed Stratford City business districts. In addition, there is now the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will transform East London.

The Canning Town and Royal Docks area (City East) is located in inner East London/ the western end of the Thames Gateway and is a few miles from the City of London, one of the world’s major financial centres (area shaded in dark red, see map below).

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Despite this the study area contains some of the most deprived aLondon. The core study area (shaded in dark red in the map becharacterised by derelict docks, industrial sites along the rivedevelopments around sections of the docks and the river, and estaresidential areas comprising of low to medium rise housing to the norarea also contains London City Airport which is mainly orientated tbusiness travellers from the City of London and Canary Wharf. Generarea is characterised by a poor urban environment, lacking green openwhich has significant barriers to local movement. In total the site cosome 910 hectares of land. The wider study area (shaded in light red) to the West contains the Wharf business district, while Stratford to the north is the site of thOlympic stadium and a proposed major office led development.

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A number of key factors have prompted this urban-design led study: A) Market interest in the area has recently strengthened, due to the availability of land, a healthy job market (in particular in the City and Canary Wharf) and a buoyant housing market.

B) Planned transport investments to extend the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), an extension to the East London Underground Line, new transit schemes, and a new public transport and road river crossing (Thames Gateway Bridge) will increase the accessibility of the area. In addition, Crossrail is being progressed which will link West, Central and East London by a new heavy rail line.

C) The opportunity for development and regeneration is great; recent research has found that more than two-thirds of the total housing capacity in Thames Gateway is located in the western end.

D) Many large sites are in public ownership, with the London Development Agency owning around 200 ha of land in the Royal Docks. There is potential for significant parcels of vacant /under-used land, often in single ownership, to come forward in the short- to medium-term.

E) There is a need to develop a design-led vision to enable the public and private sectors to prepare their master plans and to create a framework for investment that overcomes the substantial obstacles to developing a new mixed-use, quality urban area.

F) There is an opportunity to influence the review of the London Plan and Newham’s emerging Action Area Plan.


By intensifying and concentrating development to the immediate east of London’s existing ‘city centre’, City East has the potential to become a model of high-density, well-connected, mixed, and civilised urban development, which responds to London’s growing needs as a World City.

The City East appraisal study has three key work streams: urban design (conducted by consultants KCAP), economics and planning (ARUPS and Drivers Jonas) and transport (Halcrow and Transport for London). This paper focuses on the transport and urban design work streams. 2. PLANNING OBJECTIVES The overall study’s objectives were set with regard to national and regional planning policy. A total of nine objectives were created: A) Develop sustainable neighbourhoods by ensuring sustainable patterns of development which maximise the potential of accessible locations, minimising the amount of waste produced, providing adequate facilities for recycling for homes and businesses and making provision for energy efficiency and renewable energy; B) Improve and make new connections between the existing and new communities by reducing the severance created by infrastructural barriers of road and rail infrastructure, pylons and the docks; C) Maximise the potential of sites to provide more and better housing including a mix of good quality housing with a mix of tenures and a range of unit sizes and types, to attract new residents into the area, as well as housing that is affordable to encourage existing residents to remain in the area;

D) Identify a location(s) for a new/enhanced district centre(s) that are accessible, vibrant and successful and provide a full range of shopping, leisure, entertainment and service uses. Centres should reflect the area’s cultural diversity and have a strong sense of local identity; E) Integrate existing communities and new development to ensure that new communities are not isolated and that existing communities benefit from the provision of new facilities; F) Encourage new, compatible mixed-use development by providing new and improved high quality community, health, education (for all ages and sections of the community), leisure and recreational facilities, to serve the needs of both existing and future communities;

G) Develop the economy by ensuring there is a significant element of employment generating uses to provide for a range of existing and new business needs, attract new businesses and create employment and training opportunities for local people.


H) Provide good transport links to minimise the adverse impacts on crowding and congestion levels through integrated transport provision and land use form; and maximise accessibility to jobs and facilities in the study area and wider Thames Gateway and London area;

I) Protect and improve the natural and built environment by ensuring a high-quality built environment; providing well designed and attractive buildings and public spaces. J) Realise the potential of the River Thames and the Royal Docks by improving the identity and enclosure of the docks and promoting uses that capitalise on the water as an asset. 3. URBAN DESIGN The urban design work has underpinned and to an extent preceded the development of the scenarios. This has been based on an overarching framework for future spatial development of the study area, incorporating large-scale spatial proposals, an understanding of the network of key public spaces, and strategic interventions to road and rail infrastructure. The location, quantum and intensity of future regeneration within the study area is largely predicated on the capacity of the transport network. The design process, informed by the planning and economics work, resulted in an initial list of 12 scenarios. In developing all the scenarios, existing permissions for up to 15,000 residential units were included within the scenarios. However, the scenarios differ in their assumptions of a plausible future for the core study area based on all possible combinations of three main variables: Crossrail with a new station at Custom House. The scheme will allow higher densities and more office development to be supported. Amount of industrial land released (30%, 60% and 80%). This affects site availability and location of remaining industrial and wharf-related activity. Retention / redevelopment of London City Airport The airport constrains development within and outside the study area by affecting site availability, constraining permitted building heights and affecting the suitability of the area for residential development.


Following assessment of the 12 scenarios against the planning objectives it was considered that three would be taken forward (see table below) for more detailed consideration and assessment against a reference case.

Airport Level of industrial land release

Crossrail Additional population

Additional jobs/ Type of Employment

Reference Case

Open 30% Yes High proportion of industrial jobs

Low Open 30% No 61,000 11,000. Higher employment densities and higher proportion of office jobs than ref case

Medium Open 60% Yes 77,500 16,000. Primarily residential led future

High Closed 80% Yes 96,000 15,000. High proportion of office jobs

Following discussions with the London Borough of Newham, concerns were expressed over the high densities contained in the high scenario and the possible closure of London City Airport, which generates significant employment for the area. Therefore work is now concentrating on the development of the medium scenario. However, the possibility of closing the airport at a future date still exists, especially as land values will rise with development of the surrounding area. 3.1 Urban design issues Currently the area is quite fragmented – a patchwork of different developments and characteristics, and lots of barriers created by infrastructure. The spatial characteristics of sub areas should be recognised and strengthened, to create places with strong identities (as shown in the map below) and seek to avoid ‘generic’ type development which will not contribute to a sense of place.


Existing Proposed

The following spatial aspirations were identified for ea A) Canning Town and Custom House – Strengthenurban character and build on the excellent connection B) Victoria Dock area – Major mixed use developpotential for growth based on a Crossrail station at Calso requires a stronger sense of place and neighbouring areas. C) East Docks – The amazing water spaces of thefocus for the overarching spatial strategy for this area. D) Riverside – The special spatial qualities and singshould be retained and strengthened, with higher dfocused along the transport corridor to the north. E) Beckton – Existing open spaces creates a ‘greenimprove amenity of this network, and relationship betwand existing residential neighbourhoods. F) Leamouth – Resolving the local movement barriersimproving access between the study area and Canathe currently isolated major development sites. G) Albert Dock Basin – Emerging pattern of ‘chudevelopments, requirement to improve the conneccreate integrated not isolated communities. One of the key objectives of all the scenarios has bethe impact of rail and road corridors and improve coareas. This is proposed through two main intervention

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1) To the south of the area, activity is focused on North Woolwich Road which is a high capacity road carrying Heavy Goods Vehicles to and from heavy industrial sites along the River Thames. Construction of a new service road, in the south of the study area, would form a “lively spine”, along which frontage retail and service uses are introduced. Additional lively spines are proposed to be created along existing roads on an east-west axis, connecting existing and proposed local centres and amenities, at Canning Town, Custom House and North Woolwich. 2) To the north of the study area, the ‘Victoria Road Corridor’ significantly restricts pedestrian access on a north-south axis and has an adverse impact on visual amenity and land values in adjacent areas. This severance is worse where the corridors of Victoria Dock Road (approx 13 m wide), Royal Albert Way (a local distributor road), the Docklands Light Railway line (average 22.5m wide), and the overhead electricity cables running alongside Victoria Dock Road all coincide in the area around and to the east of Custom House station. The higher growth scenarios propose reducing the visual and physical impact of this corridor by limited bridging or more substantial decking. This would release land for development and increase surrounding land values. However, in order to be financially viable the construction of Crossrail and the establishment of Custom House as an office location would be required. 4. TRANSPORT In the transport work a series of key transport performance indicators were developed to relate back to the studies objectives, including; Objective A - Develop sustainable neighbourhoods

Indicators - Accessibility to public transport; Origin and destination and mode share analysis.

Objective H - Provide good transport links

Indicators - Crowding by public transport; Accessibility to population and employment; Highway flows and congestion levels (measured by delay rate); Passenger flows at Underground, Rail and Docklands Light Rail Stations.

A planning horizon of 20 years was adopted for the transport modelling, as reliable employment and population projections were not available post 2026. In order to assess the impact of various development scenarios, strategic transport models were used, the London Transportation Studies model (LTS) and Railplan. LTS was used to estimate the level of demand on the public transport and highway networks. Public transport demand was then input into Railplan to provide a more accurate assessment of flows and crowding on National Rail, Underground and Docklands Light Rail.


It was considered that Transport for London’s transport planning reference case for 2025 would be used as the benchmark for this study. Transport schemes that were modelled in addition to the 2006 transport network included;

* Extensions to the Docklands Light Rail network to Woolwich and between Stratford International and Woolwich; * Capacity upgrades on the Underground (Jubilee Line); * Extension to the East London Underground Line; * A highway and public transport crossing over the River Thames (Thames Gateway Bridge); * Crossrail; * Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Other transport planning tools used included the CAPITAL model, which is used to calculate the number of jobs and population within set travel times of a selected origin. 4.1 Transport Issues The aforementioned models were run for each of the development scenarios to produce the performance indicators. In this paper a selection of indicators for the public transport and highway networks are considered for the medium scenario. The Railplan public transport assignment model used in this study uses Planning Guideline Capacities (PGC) to determine the degree of crowding on rail services. These figures are used to determine "crowded time" and thereby to influence the choice of preferred route within the model. The PGC figures are a product of service frequency, train length (the number of carriages) and the number of seats and crush capacity of each carriage. PGC figures are also used to compute the ratios of assigned demand to PGC (or "PGC ratios") on different links of the public transport network. Note that crowding on bus services is not estimated within Railplan, partly because it is generally considered more difficult to define long-term bus routeings and service levels, and partly because bus operators are generally assumed to be better able to adjust services to respond to changes in demand over time. The rail capacities used are crucial to establishing the adequacy of a particular network to accommodate the demand associated with a particular level of development. Rules of thumb for crowding/capacity thresholds are:

* 1.0-1.25 is classified as crowded; * 1.25-1.5 as very crowded; * 1.5+ as severely crowded.

A V/C ratio of 1.00 approximates to 1 person sitting and 2 people standing per square metre. However, exact crowding definitions vary according to rolling stock.


In assessing the impact of the proposals it is necessary to compare the impacts against the reference case to isolate the specific impact of the development within the core study area. The plot below shows crowding on the Underground network in 2025 in the core and wider study areas. It can be seen that the Central Line is classed as very crowded from beyond Stratford into central London. The Jubilee Line from Canning Town to Canada Water is classed as crowded, and very crowded from Canada Water into London Bridge (one of central London’s busiest national rail stations). As such the Underground is considered as being able to support the level of development proposed.

For the National Rail Network and the Docklands Light Railway, the following headline conclusions were reached: On the DLR additional development as proposed will lead to severe crowding in the core study area from West Silvertown to Canning Town, where people interchange to use the Jubilee Underground Line. In addition, crowding was forecast to occur from London City Airport to West Silvertown. Due to the severe level of crowding forecast, it was recommended that capacity on the Woolwich branch of the DLR would need to be increased by over 50%, through the lengthening of trains and frequency improvements. It was also concluded by the study that the DLR should be upgraded to three car operations between Stratford and Poplar to ease forecast crowding due to development outside of the core study area in the Isle of Dogs (which is a rapidly expanding business centre).


For National Rail, the level of additional development will not detrimentally affect services. In contrast, results have shown that development should be increased around the proposed Crossrail station at Custom House to take advantage of spare capacity on this branch of the line. For the highway network, the measure of congestion was extracted from the LTS model. Congestion is calculated as the total journey time of vehicles for a particular link minus the total time that the vehicles would have taken in free flow conditions. This figure is then divided by the length of the link to calculate the average delay per minute per vehicle. An example of the model’s output is given below for the am average hour (07:00-10:00).

It can be seen that the delay rate for links within the core study area is low with most links in the 0 - 1 mins per km category. Outside of the core area a number of links change bands compared with the reference case as congestion increases. However, further investigation concluded that the majority of links deteriorate due to additional development planned in the wider study area and beyond. 5. NEXT STEPS The City East study has concluded that from a strategic perspective that the National Rail, Underground and DLR networks can accommodate a scenario with 77,500 additional people and 16,000 extra jobs, as long as Crossrail and upgrades to the DLR are delivered. Indeed employment aspirations could be increased to take advantage of spare capacity in the counter AM peak direction. However, property market analysis has suggested that the core



study area would not be able to attract significant interest from office developers, due to the location of established centres nearby such as Canary Wharf, or the proposed Stratford City development which is more accessible by public transport. From a transport perspective future work will focus on developing more detailed master plans that will take into consideration local walking and cycling links. While additional modelling work will be required to explore the impacts of development on the road network in the wider study area. Ongoing work is also required with the London Borough of Newham to include the targets and planning solutions contained within the City East study within the borough’s statutory Area Action Plan. Bibliography Barton, J., Hickman, R., Alexander, D. (2006) Canning Town and Royal Docks: Strategic Options Appraisal, Halcrow, London. Georgeson, N. (2006) Transport Impacts of City East, TfL, London. Skinner, J., Brearley M. (2006) City East: Royals and Canning Town, GLA, London. Copyright © Crown copyright. All rights reserved (GLA) (100032379) (2006)

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